Learn English With Charon

Yes, the revival of everyone's favourite, Learn English With Charon.
Today's lesson: Less Vs Fewer.

This is one I find fairly easy yet I see many many people using Less and neglecting Fewer. Sadly, they are often wrong when doing so. I've also seen unnecessarily complicated rules for sorting the two out, when in truth, it's fairly easy.

Charon's hard n fast rule.
Less = Singular
Fewer = Plural

If you have ten coins and I have five... coins are plural and thus, I have fewer coins. However, money is singular so I have less money.
Likewise if you buy ten pens with your money and I buy five, I have fewer pens and thus, less ink!

So ok, there are some rare situations where it might not work like that, but for the vast majority of usages, it will be correct. Sure saves all this subclassification of nouns that I see going on. :S

Advanced Ninja English.
Ready ninjas?

Few Vs Lesser.

Yeah. O_O
Let's start with few. This is an interesting word that can mean varying amounts based on context.

1. A small amount. There are few birds around in winter.
2. A slightly larger yet still small amount. Yeah, I have a few shirts you can borrow.
3. A lot, when used in conjunction with Quite. Wow, that's quite a few pens you have there.

:) Weird.

Lesser. The dictionary claims lesser means little but it my mind, it's closer to smaller in this sense...
1. I chose the lesser amount of gold as my reward.
See, smaller. Yup.
But it can also mean lower in importance.
2. He was the lesser man. Or... The lesser of two evils.

So smaller or lower are my definitions rather than little... which just doesn't really work. :S

Well done. Off you go. Try not to stab yourselves in the pancreas while practicing.